The Duke and Duchess Of Sussex Visit South Africa

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle recently announced they're taking legal action against British tabloids for illegally publishing a private letter the Duchess sent her estranged father after her wedding. While Meghan's letter has copyright protection as a literary work under English law, the Duchess of Sussex is now being accused of leaking the contents of her letter before The Daily Mail did. In other words, this lawsuit just got super messy.

According to The Mirror journalist Christopher Burkin, Meghan is now "facing claims she invaded her own privacy after her US friends provided details of the letter's contents to an American celeb magazine." Burkin is referring to the People story in which five of Meghan's friends anonymously defended the Duchess following months of nasty tabloid stories about her family. "Pals of the royal spoke to a journalist from People after Meghan had reportedly sanctioned the move. She could now be forced to swear on oath whether she did."

One of Meghan's friends did, in fact, speak publicly about the private letter during the People interview. "After the wedding, she wrote him a letter. 'She's like, 'Dad. I'm so heartbroken. I love you, I have one father. Please stop victimizing me through the media so we can repair our relationship,'" the friend said. Burkin reports this interview "might weaken [Meghan's] claim if she has, in fact, disclosed this information to other people, disclose the letter to other people, by putting it out there into the public domain."

The Duke and Duchess Of Sussex Visit South Africa

According to InStyle, who spoke with legal expert Amber Melville-Brown about Meghan and Harry's lawsuit, the People interview may not be as big of a deal as some people believe. The Duchess will able to argue "any earlier limited disclosure was necessary in the public interest to prevent the public from being misled...only by referring to the fact and the tone, even some of the content, of the letter, could the public be disabused of the false impression given that here was a cold-hearted daughter refusing to engage with her estranged father."